The Pig Comes to Dinner by Joseph Caldwell

vow could survive the lures emanating from the female of the species, or, worse, the woman herself was, by nature, a temptress not to be trusted.
    Father Colavin’s dining room table was covered with what looked like a large shawl—his mother’s?—a relic from his boyhood or even beyond, when his ancestors had come down from Ulster five generations ago. They had since become more the people of Kerry than the people of Kerry themselves. The shawl, with broad strips of brown and maroon and a fringe of gray yarn like thick but exhausted hair, provided some sense of decoration. At the table’s center an empty glass bowl intended for fruit completed the attempt at bourgeois display.
    What had fascinated Kitty from childhood were the table legs. Thick to begin with, they swelled halfway down to the floor, then diminished to their original circumference, suggesting to Kitty that each had swallowed a melon and been unable to complete the transaction. The chairs had cushioned seats, the embroidered fabric worn down on only one at the head of the table: Father Colavin’s. The rest had simply faded, the red of the roses a pale tan and the green of the leaves close enough to this same tan color, hinting that both foliage and blossom were among time’s indifferent achievements. The chairs also testified to the priest’s solitary life, his loss of that most civilized human ritual, a shared meal. Perhaps the Eucharist—the ultimate meal shared with the Savior himself—was sufficient, even superior, and he felt no deprivation.
    There was a sideboard, a repository for the place settings seldom used and the bottle of Jameson whiskey called into service for visiting dignitaries and applicants for weddings, funerals, and baptisms. (Kitty and Kieran had been given generous sips during their nuptial arrangements, a foretaste of what lay ahead when the baptisms and the funerals would be required.) The Cross of Saint Patrick, the Celtic cross with a shortened horizontal beam, was centered above the sideboard, the rest of the wall bare out of deference to this symbol more Irish than the shamrock itself.
    Near the door leading to the pantry were the expected pictures of the Sacred Heart aflame with love and the Blessed Mother, her exposed heart pierced with the daggers of her seven sorrows.
    On the other side of the doorway were framed photographs, yellow brown by now, of the priest’s parents, the man uncomfortable in a high stiff collar, the woman, born Fitzgibbons, looking rather pleased with the lace around her neck and the brooch worn at her throat. The windows opposite the sideboard were curtained with a sheer gauzy cloth; the drapes were velvet, a plush amber, held back by braided cords that might have done previous service as the belting for a bathrobe. The rug underfoot was so thin and the weave so worn that it was constantly being crumpled by the least movement of anyone’s foot.
    Father Colavin folded his hands on the table top, looked wearily at Kitty, and said, “You’ll have to forgive me. There’s the roof and none but the devil to mend it.”
    Kitty had learned from experience that the priest was not coercing her into making a contribution but offering her a bargaining chip. She was there to ask a favor. Few came to see him for reasons other than to complain about the music, the homily, the behavior of fellow congregants, the altar boys and girls scratching themselves in forbidden places. Unfailingly, Father Colavin would greet such “suggestions” with awed gratitude for the information, offer a hint that heresies, liturgical abominations, and public sinning would soon become the object of his full attention, then go about his business with an equanimity available only to those capable of ignoring the presumptions of upstarts.
    More often than not, Kitty was grateful for his barricades. Given any proximity she would have been unable to resist the urge to reach out